by Eric Flint
So he glared at me for a full five minutes, frowning all the while in that inimitable fashion which would cause a lifetime of nightmares to any poor child which saw it. But he couldn't think up a logical riposte, and he finally gave up trying. He nodded once, indicating his official approval of the engagement. That was all I needed. I was out of the room in a flash, down the stairs, up the street, around this corner and that, and back in The Trough. I was in a hurry because I wanted to close the deal. Once we'd taken the money for the job, Greyboar wouldn't back out even if he did think up some idiotic philosophical objection. Professional ethics, don't you know?
Our prospective client was still there, at the same table in the corner. The silly jackass was all scrunched up, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. His eyes were flitting hither and yon, flicking fearfully over the other occupants of The Trough. Dozens of lowlifes, there were at that hour, every one of whom—not to mention all of them taken together—was a source of fear and loathing for our client. Nothing unusual about his reaction, of course. He wasn't the first little rich kid who'd sat in that corner table, huddled and shivering with terror, while I left him to finalize the deal with Greyboar.
As soon as I sat down he started whining. "I could have had my throat cut fifty times over while you've been gone. You said you were only going to be a few minutes. You were gone for hours! I was alone at the mercy of these—"
"Oh, shut up," I snarled. (One of the things I always liked about the strangling trade—you really didn't have to fawn over your customers the way a greengrocer does.) "You were safer here than anywhere in the world. D'you think for a minute that any of the characters in this room would even think of scaring off one of Greyboar's clients?"
I sneered. "There isn't a cutthroat anywhere in the Flankn who'd try to come between Greyboar and a commission. Certainly not in The Trough! There's probably more pleasant ways to commit suicide, but there's sure none quicker."
I let the sneer slide off after a few seconds. It's good to put the piglets down, but you don't want to overdo it. As the wise man says: "Pissing on 'em's fine, but don't drown 'em."
"Besides," I added, "I wasn't gone all that long. Took me longer than usual, because Greyboar's not happy with the job. Your great-grandfather's been one of our steadiest clients for years. The big guy hates to let him go. In fact—"
Well, I won't bore you with the rest. Naturally, I used Greyboar's reluctance as my excuse to jack the fee up even higher. And, naturally, I succeeded. I wondered, sometimes, what Greyboar would have done without me as his agent. Probably been strangling crocodiles in a circus sideshow for peanuts.
I'll give the little rat this much, he put up a good struggle. No matter how scared they are—of their surroundings and of the very idea of hiring a strangler in the first place—I never saw one of these greedy heirs apparent who'd cough up the fee without squabbling. But it didn't bother me. The kid wasn't a shadow of his great-grandfather when it came to haggling. And Greyboar could say what he wanted—personally, I was looking forward to getting rid of that ancient horse trader. Wouldn't ever have to listen to him again, the venerable Monsoor Etienne Avare.
Yep, the Merchant Prince himself—our newly contracted chokee-to-be. The richest man in New Sfinctr, some said. That wasn't actually true. There were several dukes and archbishops—not to mention the Queen—who had fortunes to make Avare's look like a child's piggy bank. But he was certainly the wealthiest member of the parvenu classes. And, in any event, after a while the whole point becomes moot. Even somebody as greedy and tight fisted as me thought hoards that big were ridiculous. I mean, what's the fun of having so much money that you can't even count it?
Quite a guy, actually, Monsieur Etienne Avare. He'd amassed a fortune as a young entrepreneur, and then kept it growing all through his later years. Even when his years got later and later and later. Over a hundred years old, he was. He'd outlived all his sons and daughters, all his grandsons and granddaughters, and was halfway through the next generation.
Not without some help, of course. Greyboar was right about that—Avare had been a steady customer over the years. Every few months we'd get invited to his mansion, have a nice gentlemanly chat over brandy, and then get a commission to burke whichever one of his descendants had succeeded in convincing Avare they were worthless bums not worthy of inheriting his money. Very high standards he had, the Merchant Prince. Two generations had failed to meet them already.
Greyboar always liked the work. It was not only steady, but it was completely free of petty nuisances. The porkers who examined the deceased would invariably report them as suicides or accidents. One of the benefits, you'll understand, of having a merchant prince as a client. But, of course, he'd never had to deal with Avare's haggling. As soon as the brandy was finished, and the deal agreed to, Greyboar would make his grand exit while I had to stay and do the dirty work. The brandy snifters would disappear in a flash, replaced by a tumbler of salted water. After the first such session, I never made the mistake of drinking from it again. Hard to negotiate when you're dying of thirst, don't you know?
But it was all in the past now! We had a new client, one of Avare's half-dozen surviving great-grandsons. Marcel Avare, his name was. He'd gotten tired of waiting for the old man to croak, and since he was one of the few Avare scions who'd managed to make some money on his own, he'd been able to save up enough to hire Greyboar to bring him his inheritance. Much dumber than the old man, of course—he'd even let slip how much of a nest egg he'd saved up. I cleaned him out of every penny of it. But, then again, his loss would only be momentary. He'd soon enough be the richest merchant in New Sfinctr himself.
The deal made, our client scurried out of The Trough like a rodent fleeing a lion's den. I would have liked to have stayed myself, celebrating. But Greyboar always liked to do a job quick, and I'd need a clear head to figure out a plan of action. The truth was, it was going to be a tricky job. The old miser's mansion was built like a fortress, and he had bodyguards and watchdogs like you wouldn't believe.
So I left and went back to our apartment. Well, it'd be more accurate to say our garret. Three small rooms we had, on the top floor of one of the Flankn's tenement buildings. We could have afforded a nicer place, easily, but I never saw any reason to waste money on inessentials. Greyboar'd make noises now and then about "the dump," but he really didn't care that much himself.
By the time I got back, Greyboar had reconciled himself to reality. Sort of.
"You know how hard it's going to be, just getting to Avare to put the thumbs on him?" he demanded.
"D'you mind if I sit down first, before you start grousing?"
Once seated, I said: "Yeah, I know it's going to be more difficult than our usual jobs. But look at the bright side—I was able to crank our fee way up, moaning and groaning to the little snot about the insuperable challenges ahead."
"How much are we getting, anyway?" he asked sulkily.
I played the trump card. "Five thousand quid."
The sulky look vanished. Greyboar whistled. "Not bad, Ignace, not bad at all."
"Not bad?" I demanded. "It's better than three times our normal fee! It's as much as the old miser would have paid us for five or six jobs. And I didn't have to spend hours listening to the old coot demanding a discount for volume trade."
"All right, already," grumbled Greyboar. "I don't want to hear it again. I'll admit, it's a very good commission. Still and all, I think this job's going to prove a bad move in the end. Entropy, you know? The natural tendency of the universe to run down. You think you can get around it, but—"
"Will you shut up about your damned entropy?"
Once again, we were glaring at each other. Greyboar gave it up first.
"All right. I'll shut up about the entropy if you'll stop crowing about the job. I still think—never mind. Let's get down to brass tacks. How are we going to get to Avare?"
Before I could answer, there was a knock on our door. I got up and opened it.
Surprised, I was.
"Henry?" I'm afraid my jaw was probably hanging down. The last person I'd expected!
But it was him, no question about it. Henry—old man Avare's manservant and general gofer. We knew him well. He was always the one who came and told us that Avare "desired our company."
Sure enough. Henry nodded politely, and then announced: "Monsieur Avare would desire the company of you gentlemen. Tonight at eight o'clock, if you would."
Greyboar started to say something, but I silenced him with a gesture. "Certainly, Henry. Greyboar and I would be delighted to come. Eight o'clock—we shall be prompt."
As soon as Henry left and I'd closed the door, Greyboar started right in.
"What are you doing, you little squirt? You know we can't take another job from old Avare now!" He glowered fiercely. "There's a matter of professional ethics involved here!"
"Who said anything about doing a job for him?" I demanded. "Was there any mention of a job? Did Henry say anything about a job? Did we agree to do a job? Did any money change hands? Was the crude subject of money even mentioned? No! We were simply invited over to the old miser's mansion for brandy. What better way to get in to see him? Without having to fight our way through an army of guards and watchdogs? We just waltz into the mansion, and then, as soon as Henry's poured the brandy and left the room, like he always does, you do the choke. Then we leave. By the time anybody figures out something's wrong, we'll be long gone."
Greyboar was frowning ferociously. Before he could say anything, I continued:
"Sure, and it'll be obvious we did the choke, but so what? We'll have to hide out for a bit, while the porkers make a show of looking for us. But we won't even have to leave the Flankn. And you know the porkers won't try all that hard to find us. The truth is, Avare's made himself plenty of enemies in this town—especially among the upper crust, half of whom owe him a fortune. There'll be counts and barons and earls and who knows what greasing the porkers' palms to let the whole thing slide."
He sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know it'll work. But I don't like it. Your scheme bends professional ethics into a pretzel."
"And so what?" I couldn't pass up the opening. "You're a philosopher, aren't you? What else is philosophy good for if not splitting the hair between bending and breaking?"
Here I did my imitation of the wizard Zulkeh:
" 'Tis a truth known to babes in swaddling clothes, the epistemological distinction 'twixt bending and breaking! Did not the great sophist Euthydemus Srondrati-Piccolomini himself, in his ground-breaking A Loop Is But A Hole, argue that—"
Greyboar, the sourpuss, was not amused. But he gave up whining about professional ethics. Still and all, he made the rest of the afternoon miserable, muttering about "unforeseen entropic consequences" and such-like nonsense.
When the time came to leave, I was right glad of it. We hired a carriage. Bit too far to walk, and besides, wouldn't be proper showing up at Avare's mansion without suitably snooty transport. As much money as we were making for the job, I wasn't about to quibble over a few shillings. The more so since it was midwinter. New Sfinctr's winters are fairly mild—it's about the only saving grace the city has, business opportunities aside. But a mild winter's still not summer.
My misery wasn't over, though, because Greyboar started whining all over again after I explained the details of the plan. It was the part about the brandy that upset him.
"And why shouldn't we wait until after we've had the brandy?" I demanded. "Avare's brandy is the best in town, you know that."
"I don't care," grumbled the strangler. "You can twist professional ethics all you want, you miserable little lawyer, but I still think it's going too far to drink a man's brandy when you're planning to put the big choke on him."
"What's the difference? He's a chokee no matter how you look at it. And enough about professional ethics! He won't start talking business until after the brandy, you know it as well as I do. So we finish the brandy—the best in the world, that brandy is—and then, when he starts in about a job, we just politely decline. If you want to be an absolute stickler about it, you can explain to him that we have a prior engagement which prevents us from accepting his commission—professional ethics, don't you know? Then you give him the squeeze."
He hemmed and hawed, but he came around eventually. I knew he would. He loved good brandy, Greyboar did, but he was too cheap to buy any for himself. Well, actually, it'd probably be more accurate to say that I was too cheap to let him.
At eight o'clock sharp, we presented ourselves at the front gate of the mansion. Henry himself came out to let us in. He ushered us through the grounds—waving off the dogs and their keepers—and into the mansion itself. He took off our overcoats and hung them in the vestibule. Then he led us up the main staircase onto the second floor, and from there it was but a short distance to the study.
I don't know what it is about rich people that they always have to have a "study." Not the scholarly types, as a rule, your robber barons. I'll give Avare this much, his study actually had a lot of books in it. Nary a stuffed animal in the room. And the books all looked well read, too.
Of course, his library was highly specialized. One whole wall was taken up by much-thumbed copies of The Encyclopedia of Exploitation—all 788 volumes, he had the entire set. Another wall was taken up by leather-bound first editions. Top-flight stuff. All the great classics on the subject ever written by either one of the world's great scholarly clans: Rockefeller Laebmauntsforscynneweëld's trilogy: Plundering the Poor, Pillaging the Plebes and Peeling the Paupers. J. P. Sfondrati-Piccolomini's Beg and Be Damned. On and on.
Secular writings, mostly, but he had a fair number of the Ecclesiarchy's "Tomes for Troubled Times," too—for instance, Paolo Pipa, Cardinal Bufo's The Sin of Wages.
His proudest literary possession was encased in glass and mounted on the wall above the fireplace. The first time I saw it, I couldn't believe it. But Avare assured us it was genuine. Only four authentic copies in the world, according to him. An ancient piece of vellum, bearing a fragment of the legendary Primitive Accumulation of Capital, by Genghis Laebmauntsforscynneweëld.
As usual, Avare greeted us from his easy chair by the fireplace. In all the hours I spent with the old guy, I never once saw him out of the chair. "At my age," he'd explained, "one must conserve one's energies. My legs have long since withered to sticks, but one doesn't need legs to ruin rivals."
The truth is, Avare looked like he was already a corpse. The twitching fingers and the moving eyeballs were the main signs of life. When he talked, even his voice sounded like it came from the grave. Hoarse, faint, dry as dust.
"Be seated, gentlemen," he rasped. "Henry, pour these good men some brandy."
As soon as our brandies were before us, Avare raised his own glass in a feeble semblance of a toast. Greyboar and I drank deeply. The one downside to the whole business, I thought at the moment, was that we'd not be tasting any more of that terrific brandy. A sad thought. I drowned my sorrows. So did Greyboar.
"Goodness," said Avare, "you are both certainly thirsty tonight. Henry, leave the bottle next to the gentlemen. I shall ring for you when I need further assistance." Here he gestured to the small bell which he always kept by his side. But I wasn't worried about the bell. As feeble as Avare was, he'd never get hold of it before Greyboar got hold of his weasand. Very quick-moving, the chokester, when his mind was on business and not philosophy.
Henry left the room, closing the door behind him. A nice thick door, I noticed, perfect for deadening sound. Yes, indeed, things were looking good.
Greyboar was uncomfortable, fidgeting. And, of course, Avare noticed immediately. There was nothing decrepit about the old man's mind.
"You seem ill at ease, Sirrah Greyboar," he commented. "Not at all your normal self."
Greyboar muttered some silly stuff about indigestion. The old man wasn't fooled for a moment, I could tell. And the worst of it was that Avare decided to get right down to business instead of w
hiling away a pleasant half hour in well-brandied conversation. I decided then and there that I'd sneak the brandy bottle out with us when we left. Have to make sure Greyboar didn't notice, of course. The chokester would be bound to make a stink about it, yapping on and on about the fine points of professional ethics.
"I have requested your presence tonight," said Avare, "because I have concluded that yet another of my would-be heirs has demonstrated that he is unfit for the inheritance."
He frowned peevishly. "Really, I am so tired of the whole business. You'd think that one of my descendants would show some capability. I'm on to the fourth generation now. Such a sad and sorry lot they've proven to be! Most distressing! It's why I cling to life, you know? Personally, I'd as soon be done with it. At my age, the grave is a thing to long for rather than fear. But I have a grave responsibility to the family fortune. It's my plain and simple duty to ensure that it falls into competent hands."
Not to worry, old-timer, I thought to myself. Your toil and trouble is almost over. I made a little motion to Greyboar, signifying: okay, choke the geezer and let's get out of here.
But, naturally, that was too simple for the great philosopher! Oh no, he had to make a great ethical issue out of the whole thing! I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't! The huge numbskull started jabbering away as to how he couldn't accept the commission because, don't you see, he'd already taken on another client, don't you see, and given the nature of his commission, don't you see, there'd be an irremovable stain on his professional ethics, don't you see, if he accepted Avare's commission, don't you see, because—
Well, like I said, there was nothing wrong with Avare's brain, whatever condition his body was in. Greyboar hadn't stumbled his way through the first two clauses before the old man figured everything out. I could tell by the sudden gleam in the ancient eyes. There'd be no way now that Greyboar could get to the bell before Avare rang it. And besides, it was plain as day from his furrowed brow that Greyboar was completely pre-occupied with trying to elaborate the ethical whichness from the whatness. He wasn't even thinking about the bell!